A gripping collection of six stories of terror -- including the novella The Visible Filth, the basis for the upcoming major motion picture -- by Shirley Jackson Award-winning author Nathan Ballingrud, hailed as a major new voice by Jeff VanderMeer, Paul Tremblay, and Carmen Maria Machado -- ''one of the most heavyweight horror authors out there'' (The Verge).

In his first collection, North American Lake Monsters, Nathan Ballingrud carved out a distinctly singular place in American fiction with his ''piercing and merciless'' (Toronto Globe and Mail) portrayals of the monsters that haunt our lives -- both real and imagined: ''What Nathan Ballingrud does in North American Lake Monsters is to reinvigorate the horror tradition'' (Los Angeles Review of Books).

Now, in Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell Ballingrud follows up with an even more confounding, strange, and utterly entrancing collection of six stories, including one new novella. From the eerie dread descending upon a New Orleans dive bartender after a cell phone is left behind in a rollicking bar fight in ''The Visible Filth'' -- to the search for the map of hell in ''The Butcher's Table,'' Ballingrud's beautifully crafted stories are riveting in their quietly terrifying depictions of the murky line between the known and the unknown.

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''A great horror story doesn't simply stay with you; it haunts you, and Nathan Ballingrud's fiction does just that.'' --Arkham Digest on North American Lake Monsters

''Nathan Ballingrud is one of my favorite short fiction writers.'' --Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times bestselling author, praise for the author

About the Author

Nathan Ballingrud was born in Massachusetts in 1970, but spent most of his life in the South. He studied literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at the University of New Orleans. Among other things, he has been a cook on oil rigs and barges, a waiter, and a bartender in New Orleans. He now lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with his daughter in an apartment across from the French Broad River.

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Jake Marley

5.0 out of 5 starsAn Outstanding Collection of Short Fiction

15 April 2019 - Published on Amazon.com

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Nathan Ballingrud is one of the best writers working today. Full stop. His stories are heartfelt, evocative, and transcendent. They'll burrow into your skull and come crawling out, altering the world around you. The stories in his second collection, WOUNDS, won't just haunt you, man--they'll TRANSFORM you. They can be as charming and imaginative as the Hellboy and BPRD universe of Mike Mignola (and his many, many collaborators), but as visceral as Clive Barker. There's nothing quaint about Ballingrud's imagination. He cuts, gouges, pries, and warps reality to pull you in and make you believe in the wonders and horrors of his vision of Hell. I'm a fan, so I might be biased, but my reactions to Ballingrud's fiction are honest. Every story in the collection is good, but the lead, "The Atlas of Hell," has been my single favorite short story since I first read it in FEARFUL SYMMETRIES, knocking Stephen King's "1408" to second-place. I've reread "The Atlas of Hell" a dozen times, and now with WOUNDS I'm sure I'll read it--and the five other wonderful stories included here--at least a dozen more. These are not for the faint-hearted (or the hard-hearted), but for an audience that believes horror can be more than just cheap thrills and jump scares. It can be a song that's so beautiful it calls to the primal animal inside of you. It can be a dead man's ideas floating into the world. It can be the rituals of strange gods or underage drinkers with access to dark grimoires. It can be an unforgettable journey into Hell. I cannot recommend this book enough. Take the chance. Let Ballingrud's stories, characters, words and ideas, change you into something gloriously disturbing.

The implication of those four, short words from one of the most dazzling, intense pieces of weird fiction I have ever read - The Butcher's Table - drifts throughout this collection of six stories. Love is an unexpected theme that appears in all of these stories in various forms. Whether it's a father's love for his son, a husband's love for a lost wife, a man's love for for his dog, or the forbidden love of two people from different backgrounds, these stories plumb the depths of the horrors that love can unleash. I am also blown away by the intensity of the hellish, nightmarish visions burned across these pages. Although each story stands alone, the reader is treated to glimpses of a common vision of Hell that is only partially glimpsed through references to Love Mills, Order of the Black Iron, and a certain, macabre sort of kite. In particular, the story "The Visible Filth" took on greater depth and meaning for me upon re-reading it in the context of this full collection. I will definitely becoming back to this collection for another reading at some point but will have plenty to haunt me until such time.

I've been a fan of Nathan's work since first stumbling across it in one of Ellen Datlow's anthologies. I was delighted when North American Lake Monsters came out and spent a long six years eagerly awaiting more. I have to say, Wounds was well worth every anxious moment of impatience. The characters were compellingly rendered in each story. Ranging mostly from the darker side or morally gray to outright pitch black, each of them was compelling in their own unique ways and they all felt fully realized. Although the grotesque imagery and darkness of the themes are as fine as you could hope for in the genre, it's the strength of the character work that really makes this collection so powerful.

I loved the recurring little details that helped connect the stories, and the thought of combing through them all again for more connections I missed had me eager for a re-read. I can't remember the last time I was this completely happy with a short story collection. Now I've just got to buy a few more copies for friends so I can have someone to talk about it with.

I was super excited to read this book as I love Ballingrud's earlier novel "North American Lake Monsters." And I was not disappointed. This book is one that becomes vividly alive in the reader's mind. The stories and landscapes...the worlds that Ballingrud creates in this book are enthralling and disturbing. I especially loved Skullpocket which must have a graphic novel version or a movie version made very soon (talking to you Tim Burton) and The Butcher's Tale. These stories are visceral and fascinating. Everyone who loves horror needs to read Ballingrud's books. His work is brilliant.

These stories emerge from the depths of mutated pyches, scarring the mind with indelible artistic configurations produced by the mutilation of accepted life forms. From the most remote corners of the abyss come sounds that can only be produced by torn and broken lives. These surfacing beings have been transformed into formidable and awe-inspiring atrocities. Beware the siren, as the song that emerges is as deadly as it is beautiful.